Information relating to a presentation supporting the original
Blackfoot Community Conservation Area
Motorized Use Proposal

August 2011

Background

The Blackfoot Community Conservancy Area (BCCA) is an innovative
initiative for land conservation being pursued as a joint effort
between
The Nature Conservancy
and
The Blackfoot Challenge .
When completed, approximately 5600 acres of former
Plum Creek Timber Company
lands purchased by The Nature Conservancy
will be turned over to the Blackfoot Challenge
for management as a community conservation area.
These lands are part of a much larger purchase of Plum Creek lands
(approximately 88,000 acres)
in the Blackfoot River drainage.
They were purchased in an effort to preserve
their natural resource values
and prevent fragmentation of the western Montana landscape.

In anticipation of this event,
a council was appointed by the Blackfoot Challenge board of directors
to come up with a proposed management plan for the BCCA.
This plan may eventually be expanded to include
additional adjoining lands under ownership of
federal agencies ( U.S. Forest Service ),
state agencies
( Montana Dept. of Fish, Wildlife and Parks ,
Montana Dept. of Natural Resources ),
and several neighboring private landowners.
The council is composed of people representing
different recreational and commercial users in the local community,
neighboring private landowners,
and state and federal agencies of adjoining lands.

In anticipation of this work,
a
survey
of the local community was conducted
to assess the community members' desires and expectations
for how the area would be managed and used.
Since the above link is an executive summary and lists
only a portion of the survey results,
we are providing
more complete results .

After well over a year of work,
the BCCA management council
brought their draft management plan to the local community.
It included a provision for motorized travel
which allowed all motor vehicles unlimited access
along the following routes:
the boot tree road up to the Martin Park area,
a branching road from the Monture Creek road into DNRC lands to the west,
and up the McCabe Creek road to the northwest.
It also provided for several seasonal road openings:
during elk hunting season,
the southern haul road would be open as far as a few hundred yards west of Doney Reservoir,
and a spur road over to the DNRC lands to the west would be open;
the Little Red Hills road to the northwest would also be open except during hunting season.
This is also the current open roads policy.
( Map ).

Most of the community seemed content with this proposal.
However, a group of motorized enthusiasts was not,
and voiced dissatisfaction with the fact that so few roads were open.
They were invited by the moderator of the management council
to bring a proposal to the council.
After several months,
they made a presentation to the BCCA management council on 3-April-2007.
The presentation did not propose any specific routes
or introduce any supporting data.
As we have no link to the proposal on the web,
we have transformed the electronic version to a web capable format
and provided a link to that for reference:
Presentation by Motorized Users .
Please note that while the paper is entitled
"BCCA Motorized Trail Use Recommendations"
and contains the footnote
"Recommendations as approved by workgroup -- March 28, 2007,"
the paper is not a product of the
BCCA management council.

The council began discussing possibilities for expanded motorized routes,
seeking loop roads in particular.

A number of people in the community became concerned,
as the only possible outcome of this discussion seemed to be expanded motorized use,
with no consideration for the compromises already made
during months of intense discussion by the
BCCA management council members.

As a consequence,
we prepared a
slide presentation
which was presented to the management council on 1-May-2007.
It is not as complete as we would like,
but given our limited preparation time window
we feel it represented our position adequately.
The purpose of the presentation was straightforward:
we wanted the council to stick with its original proposal.
That proposal allowed limited motorized use;
given the high public focus on wildlife
and other forms of recreation
as expressed by the survey,
we feel expanded motorized use is unjustified.

During the presentation,
numerous questions were asked by members of the council
which prompted discussion amongst the council
and other members of the public who were present.
One topic which stands out which was not addressed on these slides
is different species' potential for habituation to disturbances.
In addition, Jay Kolbe, the management council representative
for the Montana Dept. of Fish, Wildlife and Parks,
suggested a
scientific paper
done by the
Montana chapter of
The Wildlife Society
as a source for more information.

Copies of the presentation were brought for distribution to council members.
However, following the presentation
the council requested an electronic copy of the presentation.
Since other members of the public were also interested,
and since there has been some misunderstanding
about what we actually presented to the council,
we decided to put it on the web
instead of having to continually send people the presentation.
A few of the slides have been modified slightly
to correct errors;
these modifications have been noted at the bottom of the slides.
We have also included links to other documents
pertaining to the discussion
to give the reader a more complete context.